I suspect one of the purposes behind the Rider Kicks retail figures is to do a global scaling-down. Retail figures seem to have been a consistent size for a while, and I imagine Bandai may have had some concerns about getting people to pick up smaller figures of just Zi-O, since they wouldn't be compatible with anyone else. Aside from the obvious cash-cow factor, it means that for kids whose entryway into Kamen Rider is Zi-O, they'll have access to scale-compatible figure versions of previous Riders, and freed from the gimmick-related limitations of their individual lines. The longer a line goes on, the less appealing large figures become, and I expect Bandai and Toei are aiming for the long term.

I suspect one of the purposes behind the Rider Kicks retail figures is to do a global scaling-down. Retail figures seem to have been a consistent size for a while, and I imagine Bandai may have had some concerns about getting people to pick up smaller figures of just Zi-O, since they wouldn't be compatible with anyone else. Aside from the obvious cash-cow factor, it means that for kids whose entryway into Kamen Rider is Zi-O, they'll have access to scale-compatible figure versions of previous Riders, and freed from the gimmick-related limitations of their individual lines. The longer a line goes on, the less appealing large figures become, and I expect Bandai and Toei are aiming for the long term.

That does make sense. It appeals a lot more to lower-income families in particular if the figures are cheaper; even if they have to sacrifice size.
That said, they're not exactly sacrificing much else! The paint on the drivers and weapons are still unfortunately lacking, but the range of articulation and the inclusion of different hands is very much a welcome change. I'm looking forward to seeing just how nice Build/Cross-Z will be.

Rider Kicks Zi-O and the Build Armor showed up today. The base figure is... okay? It's comparable to other retail figures. There's no paint on the back side of the figure, or the Jikan Girade. He comes with a single swappable hand. He does not have the jointed hands from the past several Rider retail lines, but I don't consider that to be a great loss.

One of what I'd considered to be the upsides of retail figures has been "well, at least they don't require stickers." That all changes here, with three stickers, all for the chest of different sides. Athough most of the back of the armor is unpainted, the thighs at least have some color.

The Armor Time gimmick, allows more movement than I would've imagined. The most surprising element is that there's still some worthwhile neck articulation with the mask in place. The masks for Zi-O and Geiz are separate pieces, so it's not restricted by that. You *can* plug the shoulders into the upper arms for a more cohesive look (or stand-alone mode), but they can be unhooked to allow for surprising freedom of movement. Even with the armor on, the elbows can do a nearly 90-degree bend. Everything on the armor can be unhooked from everything else, so movement is really pretty good.

Getting stand-alone armor mode to hold together can be a little challenging. If you can manage it, however - and if you squint - you can display Zi-O and Geiz Build Armor next to each other.

I dunno how deep I'l go into this line. The size means it can't even serve in my Rider display as a rough stand-in until the Figuarts version is released.

I think there's something I absolutely hate about the design of Zi-O as concept that's kind of crystallized by these. With Decade, you had the hero taking on the forms, powers, and movesets of previous Riders. With Zi-O, previous Riders are abstracted down so that Build is just "the one with the drill" and Ex-Aid is just "the one with the hammer."

Although, weren't we supposed to get the Faiz Watch in September? I thought it was Faiz in September and Fourze in October, but I may be wrong. Also, I guess with the appearance of the Wizard and Genm Armors in the October scans means that both of their releases got moved up to October rather than November.

The original toy catalog leaks did say Faiz September, Fourze October, guess they just swapped them.

Tiny thing someone else has probably already noticed; Another Ridewatches don't have a rotation feature even in the show, so maybe we'll get them as Gashapon releases (we got things like pre-conversion versions of the lost bottles)? The alternative is premium bandai - Ghost did that with the Ganma Eyecons.

The original toy catalog leaks did say Faiz September, Fourze October, guess they just swapped them.

Tiny thing someone else has probably already noticed; Another Ridewatches don't have a rotation feature even in the show, so maybe we'll get them as Gashapon releases (we got things like pre-conversion versions of the lost bottles)? The alternative is premium bandai - Ghost did that with the Ganma Eyecons.

You're probably right. If I recall correctly, almost all (if not all) Premium Bandai releases for items are Gashapon based. So I'd suspect we'd get a Premium Bandai release, probably announced around December like the Smash Bottle set last year.